Lydia Yeamans Titus

Lydia Yeamans Titus (12 December 1857 – 30 December 1929) was an Australian-born American singer, dancer, comedienne, and actress who had a lengthy career in vaudeville and cinema. She was remembered on stage for her "Baby-Talk" act and a popular rendition of the English ballad, "Sally in Our Alley". In appreciation, King Edward VII once presented Titus a gold bar pin with the opening notes of "Sally in Our Alley" etched in diamonds. In later life Titus became a pioneer in the medium of film appearing in at least 132 motion pictures between 1911 and 1930.

Lydia Annie Yeamans was born off the coast of south eastern Australia during a voyage from Sydney to Melbourne. Her parents were Edward "Ned" Yeamans (died c. 1866), an American circus clown and comedian from New York, and Annie Griffiths (10 November 1835 – 3 March 1912), a British-born Australian circus equestrienne. Her parents married not long after Griffiths, then seventeen or eighteen, joined the Rowe Circus, an American tent show then performing in Australia.

In the mid-1860s her father, mother and baby sister Jennie settled in San Francisco after a circus tour that had encompassed Japan, China, Java and the Philippines. Titus and her younger sister Emily remained in Sydney with their grandparents and would not see their mother and sister again for nearly a decade. Ned Yeamans died after several seasons performing in circuses throughout the American West, leaving Annie Yeamans to pursue what turned out to be a long career in vaudeville and on the legitimate stage.

Titus and her sisters, Emily (c. 1859 – 20 February 1892) and Jennie (16 October 1862 – 28 November 1906), all began on stage as child actors with Jennie the more popular over their early years. Jennie's career was cut short while in her mid-forties, a fatality of tuberculosis, while Emily, a long-time character actress with Edward Harrigan's vaudeville company, fell victim to a lingering lung ailment at the age of 32.

Titus began her solo career in the fall of 1875 as a song and dance act with Tony Pastor's vaudeville company and by the late 1880s she was billing herself as the "Anglo-American Lyric Star". During this period she became a popular act overseas in tours of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. [ 11]

As a vaudeville attraction in 1900, Titus was made an honorary member of the Buffalo, New York Elks Lodge. She was later made an honorary member of the San Francisco lodge. Her imitations were masterpieces of the art of mimicry that captivated audiences with the personality she brought to each theatrical production. [ 12]

In June 1892, she was engaged to perform at New York's Madison Square Garden. Before the first show her husband, pianist Frederick J. Titus, became upset over the piano the theatre had provided for their act and over an issue with their placement on the night's billing card. When the theatre's manager failed to address these matters the two refused to go on stage and stormed out of the theatre. A few days later the actress returned without her husband to ask the manager to release them from their contract. A heated argument followed in which Titus struck the manager several times with her umbrella leaving a cut below one eye. The police were called and she was arrested, although later the manager chose not to press charges and Titus was released from custody.[ 16]

Titus began her movie career in 1911 in Brooklyn, New York with the Vitagraph Studios short film, A Tale of Two Cities. Beginning in 1915 she appeared in films produced by Bison Motion Pictures, Oliver Morosco Photoplay and Universal Studios. In 1919 she supported Geraldine Farrar as Mamie Connors in The World and Its Woman, a tale about a Russian peasant (Farrar) who rises to fame as an operatic diva. In the movie Titus sang some of the songs (although this was a silent film) that she performed for English royalty in the 1890s.[ 17]

Titus's extensive filmography encompasses a good part of the silent film era and may have continued on into the talkies if she had not died in 1929. Her final picture was the early talkie Lummox, that debuted a few weeks after her death. Titus supported some of Hollywood's most well known and legendary stars like Rudolph Valentino (A Society Sensation, 1918), Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), Ronald Colman (Tarnish, 1924) and Jackie Coogan (The Rag Man).[ 17]

Colleen Moore wrote that she once spent her paycheck on a fur coat. Her director Charles Brabin pointed Titus out to her on the set and said that she'd lived a life of luxury as a darling of the London stage and had been given a brooch by King Edward – but she spent all her money and now she was eking out a living in small parts and was glad to take anything. Moore took the hint and returned the coat.

She was married to the actor and pianist Frederick J. Titus who served as her accompanist and business manager. He is sometimes reported to have previously been married to the actress Edna May, but this is incorrect as May was married to the champion American cyclist Frederick "Fred" J. Titus. Lydia Yeamans married Titus in about 1886. They had no children.[ 18] [ 19]

Lydia Yeamans Titus died in Los Angeles on 30 December 1929, aged 72, after suffering a paralytic stroke. Having been born at sea, she directed in her will that her remains be buried at sea. Accordingly, following her funeral services her ashes were scattered upon the waves of the Pacific Ocean along the Southern California Coast. Titus was widowed in 1918. [ 20] [ 21]